It's not an easy decision - sometimes a lot easier to take a loan and get a nice new car rather than cough up a huge amount of cash for a new COE. I have no regrets about renewing my COE but I have a clear deadline on when I want to leave and I would have still had negative equity on a car loan (it's at least a few years now to get on top of that if you only pay 30% down).

I did the calculations lots of time in my mind, there is no justification of buying a new car (Unless you really want to) compared to renewing a COE.New cars breakdown as well, and you might be switching to a car where parts are a lot more expensive than the one you have now, or even a less reliable car than the one you have. Add on top of that the fact that new cars lose most of their value in the first 4 years - you're better off buying a 2nd hand or keeping yours, the PARF is a nice addition towards the new car when you scrap your old one, but it is just rolled into the new car.

We have a 10yo Honda Airways and the idea was to use the PARF rebate against the 5y COE, but if this is not possible, we will have to deregister it, cash the rebate and use it as a down payment for a 2-4yo car. Pity, the Honda is in a good shape and could be still used smoothly for 5 more years and if something major happens (I expect shortage of spare parts for this model very soon), just deregistered at some point claiming unused COE. Clearly, this system is not about effective management of existing resources of this specific type.

x9200 wrote:We have a 10yo Honda Airways and the idea was to use the PARF rebate against the 5y COE, but if this is not possible, we will have to deregister it, cash the rebate and use it as a down payment for a 2-4yo car. Pity, the Honda is in a good shape and could be still used smoothly for 5 more years and if something major happens (I expect shortage of spare parts for this model very soon), just deregistered at some point claiming unused COE. Clearly, this system is not about effective management of existing resources of this specific type.

No it's not possible to do that. However the Cat A COE continues to drop and it is in my opinion not a bad idea to renew for 5 years if you only plan to be around for afew more years.